I have been planning to put corn in the garden this year but my only concern is I am SURROUNDED by big fields and this year they will be planting corn on all sides of me. My understanding is corn is pollinated by the wind.
I have heard that cross pollination between types of corn can result in sweet corn tasting bitter. Has anyone heard of this before or is it a wives tale that I don't need to worry about?
Timing is the most important factor. Corns will readily cross pollinate when in relatively close proximity. The good news is that most field corn has a DTM of over a hundred days, many take as long as 130 days. That means you can get a crop of sweet corn before the field corn tassels (flowers). I would avoid late plantings of sweet corn, particularly any with a DTM of 90 or higher. Regular sweet corn when cross pollinated ends up with less quality. Supersweets (SH2) are drastically affected.to point of having a rubbery texture.
Okay, so just to make sure I understand! As long as I plant it early (well as early as I can here in Ohio) it should in theory mature quick enough that the corn in the fields shouldn't be ready to pollinate? I need to check my seeds but I bought two types of sweet corn this year and I hadn't decided which I wanted to use. If I remember correctly one had a shorter days to harvest than the other.
Both should do fine when planted about the same time as the field corn. The ninety day corn if planted a couple of weeks later may overlap with the field corn.
Okay I'll keep an eye on the fields! They have some big piles of new dirt they need to work in so I have a while yet before they plant! I just wanted to try to plan in advance! Thanks for all your help
OpieDoodle said:
I have heard that cross pollination between types of corn can result in sweet corn tasting bitter. Has anyone heard of this before or is it a wives tale that I don't need to worry about?
Last year we grew Bloody Butcher, Glass Gem, Indian, Blue mini, and some early sweet corn. Most of our corn looked like a unicorn had blessed it. The sweet corn was still wonderful and sweet.
I plant mixed corn types every year from four to eight types in the same patch.
Plots are separated by at most three feet.
Now I would not do this if I was planting for seed saving , as there is bleed over on the outer rows but my corn is also a mix of sweet and field corn and I have never had sweet corn ruined by bleed over.
I do not plant any of the new super sweet types.
If you can find it on-line, Precocious is the best of the non-standard sweet corns I have ever planted in forty plus years.
